The Last Revelation III: Garden of The Five Towers
by Heidi Ahlmen
Summary: In 1989 Lara Croft and Jean-Yves DuCarmine team up to collect a prize Lara had won when pitted against her mentor at the age of sixteen: The Angkorean Iris. Cambodia, a land with a violent past, will offer more than just archaeological revelations.
1. Chapter 1

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part III: Garden of The Five Towers by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 1  
  
"Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Land of Hinduism and Buddhism, and undiscovered treasure - and most of all, the Iris, a prize I had claimed at the age of sixteen. Now I was to collect it - but the problem was hidden in getting to Cambodia. The country was under an almost literal civil war, and no-one, except for the occasional diplomat, could enter the shallow waters of The Mekong River.  
  
And our only way in seemed to be Jean's retired father, a former diplomat and archaeologist, whose relations to the ancient culture ministry of Cambodia were worth their weight in gold. I knew he was the only person who could get us in - yet I was still very surprised when Jean called me. He asked me to fly to Paris to attend his father's birthday party. The ancient culture minister of Cambodia was going to be there, and Jean thought we ought to show up as we were both trying to book a plane to the country. I know PR is important, but it has never made my reluctance to wear heels any lesser."  
  
The violins were singing their first notes, waiters dressed in penguin black-and-white were carrying full trays of champagne, and everyone was having a good time.  
  
Except for Jean-Yves DuCarmine. He glanced his watch again, grabbed a small biscuit from a waiter's tray nearby and ate his treat quickly. From his position on top of the guest-crowded stairs, he could see the whole hall. He took a long look around - making sure he hadn't missed anything.  
  
Another waiter passed him with a full tray of oysters in garlic butter. Jean stopped him before he could push past him on the crowded stairs, and asked; "Who is the latest guest to arrive?"  
  
"I do not know, Sir," the waiter replied with a French accent, shot an apologetic glance at Jean, and walked off. Jean walked down a couple of steps, and joined a small group of people downstairs. An elderly woman in a dark yellow evening gown offered her cheek for Jean to kiss.  
  
"Mon amie, Jean! I was just telling Monsieur Ranariddh here what a charming son we have."  
  
"Please, mother," Jean complained slightly.  
  
An older man joined the group.  
  
"There you are, Jean. You mother has been worried that you wouldn't want to socialize with us at all. How nice of you to join us. Mr. Ranariddh, this is my son Jean-Yves. Jean-Yves, you do know Mr. Ranariddh, don't you? He has kindly promised to make some arrangements for that expedition of yours."  
  
"It is not an expedition, father. Merely a tourist trip, to say. I've always been very interested in Angkor Wat and the Hindu culture in Cambodia," Jean explained, aware that he was lying slightly, and hoping he had gotten the Hindu part correct. "Now, if you please, I'll have to ask to be excused for a moment," Jean apologized, leaving his parents as he started another tour of the hall. He was slightly annoyed by the orchestra. The violins were playing too loud, and he couldn't even recognize the melody. Taking another look at his watch, Jean straightened his bow-tie and took another look at the door.  
  
And finally his wait was rewarded.  
  
A woman wearing a long, figure-hugging dark blue velvet dress had just entered the hall, fashionably late. She stopped at the doorway, taking a good look at the well-over four hundred people dancing, drinking and chatting, most of them in French. The woman tugged at the purse she hung on her right wrist, a matching blue velvet pouch with gold embroidery. Under her long hem a pair of elegant stiletto heels were visible; she was obviously one of the few people given the talent from birth to walk on stilettos.  
  
Jean pushed past probably a hundred people, half-ran to the door, and then pulled the woman behind some plants near the main entrance.  
  
"What the bloody hell are you doing, Jean?!" Lara Croft cursed silently, as Jean pulled her to a kneeling position behind the bush. He smiled, straightening his bow-tie once again.  
  
"I just wanted to get a good look at you before anyone else. You look lovely," Jean answered, knowing 'lovely' was, in his humble opinion, a rather mild expression to describe how Lara Croft looked in evening dress.  
  
"Thank you. Though a good pair of shorts can beat this thing anytime," Lara said, tugging at her dress. Jean got up and puller her up with him.  
  
"Ready to hit the dance floor?" he half-joked.  
  
"As you yourself told me on the phone, I'm not here to socialize. If this is as essential regarding our trip as you claimed, then I'm glad you called. But I warn you, Frenchman," Lara said, grinning mildly, "if I'm here for the sole purpose of being your date, then my vengeance will be wrathful." Lara smirked, adjusting the shape of her purse.  
  
"What's in there?" Jean asked, curious.  
  
"Why don't you take a look," Lara said absently, gazing around the hall over the plant they were still standing behind. Jean grabbed her purse, pulling open the top. He pulled out something that was shiny and metallic. A gun, which he held like it was poisonous.  
  
"Now tell me Lara, mon amour," he asked in an overly bitter tone, "What do you need this for?"  
  
Lara's attention was returned to Jean.  
  
"You'll never know what a weak little girl like me stumbles upon on these dangerous social calls." Jean put the gun back and gladly gave the purse back to Lara, wondering what sort of mess he had again gotten himself into. He also knew she was only joking.  
  
"Let us go and meet my parents. Mr. Ranariddh should still be with them. May I?" Jean asked, offering his arm to Lara. Stumbling a bit with her left shoe, she accepted his offer.  
  
"Not your shoes, huh?" Jean joked, as they started walking towards the stairs.  
  
"These shoes were made for me, all so true. But I wasn't made for these shoes," Lara replied, following Jean, who was still keen on supporting her arm like a true gentleman should. Lara had never learned to really enjoy these social gatherings; he only accepted an invitations when it helped her achieve something. And this party was probably going to save her from a lot of trouble.  
  
Jean lead Lara to the stairs where his parents still were.  
  
"Mother, father, Mr. Ranariddh," Jean nodded politely, "I'd like you to meet my colleague, soon-to-be graduated archaeologist Lara Croft."  
  
Lara offered her hand shyly for Jean's father to kiss. "Pleased to meet you, Sir," she said, nodding to Jean's mother.  
  
"And it is a pleasure for me, Lady Croft. I have heard good things of your father so good things come around you as well. How is your father?"  
  
Lara looked at Jean in hope for a saviour. Jean eyed her suspiciously, hinting she should lie or be quiet; "He is all too well, Monsieur DuCarmine."  
  
Completely convinced of Lara's social abilities now, Jean smiled slightly, and turned to Mr. Ranariddh, opting him to say something. The elderly diplomat kissed Lara's hand and turned to Jean.  
  
"What a lovely lady you have found, Jean-Yves. I will be making sure myself that both of you will be pleased with your trip."  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Ranariddh, you are all too kind," Lara said, before Jean could open his mouth. "Perhaps you could also direct us to someone who could update us on the recent laws in Cambodia concerning the recovery of ancient artefacts."  
  
"Why of course, Miss Croft," Mr. Ranariddh replied, eyeing Lara a bit suspiciously. What was this woman up to?  
  
Jean's mother entered the conversation.  
  
"You take good care of Lara, Jean. It is obvious she relies on you in case something dangerous happens."  
  
Jean was the only one who noticed a slight but steady redness rise on Lara's face.  
  
It was Jean's father who eventually stopped Lara from throwing a bitter comment.  
  
"So, Miss Croft, what is your speciality in archaeology?"  
  
"Well, I do have a background in anthropology, and in Oxford I discovered I had a profound interest in ancient Peru and Egypt, so if I had to choose a specialty, I'd choose the dynasties of Egypt."  
  
Jean's father smiled, and then continued her conversation with Mr. Ranariddh. Enraged for her treatment, similar to a child's, Lara gathered her dress, and started slowly walking away. Jean walked after her.  
  
"You ought to be more careful," he told Lara as they were stepping towards the now-catered dinner table.  
  
"About what? About the fact that we have parents similar to each others? No thank you, Jean. Work is work, and our job for tonight is done."  
  
"If that is the situation, then how about if we stopped talking about Angkor Wat for a change and enjoyed a waltz?"  
  
Lara stopped, eyeing Jean.  
  
"I am not a very good dancer," she explained.  
  
"Surely a woman who can allegedly do a backflip can dance."  
  
"If I were agitatable, I'd take that as a challenge."  
  
"Then let us be agitatable," Jean replied, and led Lara to the dance floor. "After all, if we are going to enjoy a nice, but a not-so-cozy temple together, we should may as well start our cooperation training on the dance floor."  
  
"Agreed, Mr. Bond," Lara replied, and put her hand around Jean's neck as the orchestra started playing the first notes of a waltz.  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	2. Chapter 2

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part III: Garden of The Five Towers by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Heathrow Airport, London 12th July 1989  
  
"We're acting like tourists," Lara accused.  
  
"Let me just take one more. After all, aren't we going to enjoy the trip as a holiday also?" Jean replied, snapping another picture. Then he put away his camera, and walked behind Lara, resting an assuring hand on her shoulder.  
  
Lara ignored his gesture, and rose from her uncomfortable chair, cursing her slightly too tight jeans. She had virtually forgotten the number one rule of flying; never wear anything tight-fitting. She had been a little nervous that morning - trying to figure out what to wear. 'What to wear for an aeroplane? I must be going bonkers,' she had thought to herself when raiding her wardrobe. She couldn't help but share a slightly embarrassed smile as she realized she was dressing for Jean.  
  
"Not the least - a civil war is still raging and the mines are everywhere. It's a wonder we're even getting in. I'd better get my luggage ready. Did you already check in?"  
  
"I did, actually. Thai Airlines seem to have pretty good service."  
  
Lara read the lightboards, trying to find the right boarding gate. "Tell me about it. They give you a Nintendo to play, but I warn you, Super Mario in full stereo in the middle of the night does not decrease one's level of annoyance."  
  
"Crystal clear," Jean said, grabbing his suitcases and a huge bag of Lara's and wondering why he felt so bossed around again. Lara grabbed a huge crate and the rest of her belongings and so they walked to their gate.  
  
Pulling up the window cover and gazing out to the absolute darkness surrounding the plane, Jean grabbed an advertisement leaflet and started fanning his face with it. It was terribly hot, and the lousy excuse for a coffee the stewardesses had served had made his stomach swirl. He stretched his neck to see further down.  
  
They were flying somewhere above Western Asia. The night had arrived hours earlier, killing all conversation in the plane. The air stewardesses, trying to hide their yawns, had dimmed the lights and started dealing blankets and undersized pillows. Jean was one of the few people still awake, as the time was approaching two in the morning local time wherever behind God's back they were flying. Jean looked at the TV screens near the plane alleys. They showed their location between American and Asian movies shown for the passengers' enjoyment.  
  
Flight time left: 8 hrs Arrival time at destination: 08:34  
  
Jean yawned and waited for the map to come to the screen. That happened in a few minutes. They were indeed already over Asia - over India to be exact. Next to the plane was a circle named Calcutta.  
  
Shaking off sleep from his eyes, Jean was inspired to look out again. If he pressed his nose on the plastic window, he could see blots of light somewhere, thousands of kilometres down. And then - a huge tapestry of lights. A city raging in the night - split in two by a large line of lights. Calcutta and the River Ganges.  
  
Jean wondered in Lara had ever been to India. He felt a sudden urge to take her there sometimes. During his childhood he had visited India numerous times.  
  
Jean turned away from the window and turned to face the alley side of his window seat.  
  
Next to him, fast asleep, was archaeologist Lara Croft. A few locks of her slightly sweaty hair hung on her face, and her curvy frame was spread across five seats. The plane was nowhere near full. It was a routine flight from London to Bangkok, the tourist season was over so the airlines lacked big tourist groups.  
  
Stealing a book she had last been reading from behind her head, Jean settled down more comfortably and prepared to begin reading, still taking occasional glances at his sleeping partner in war and tomb raiding. Every time she moved, Jean paused his reading, scared that he had somehow woken her up. No fear of that. She slept like a log in the plane.  
  
Lara's book was a guidebook to Cambodia, of course. Jean had read articles about the temple of Angkor Wat, but he knew nothing of the country's capital Phnom Penh or the basic facts about the alleged civil war still active in the kingdom.  
  
Something dropped out from the book. A copy of a page from a pharmacology book containing information about required and recommended precautions for tropical diseases in the Cambodian region. A drug had been outlined: doxycycline. Jean wondered why mefloquine, the drug against malaria he was taking, had not been underlined. He made a mental note to ask about it from Lara later. Yawning, Jean-Yves closed the book. He took a quick glance at Lara, stroked her hair slightly, and fell asleep.  
  
Lara Croft was dreaming. Her mind filled with information, her dreams were a mixture of mystery, and facts. Pages of history books were flying in her dreams. Voices whispering. Something of an innuendo warning her she had forgotten something. Hundreds of images. A silent awareness of danger.  
  
Lara woke up seconds later, awakened by an apparent hand on her head. She sat up, yawning and streching, wondering what had startled her. She checked the time from her watch, still too sleepy to realize local London time was not going to help her a tad bit. Tapping her fingers on the seat in front of her, she decided to get a fluid fix. She pressed the call button.  
  
In a few minutes an air steward appeared, smiling graciously to Lara. She stretched and flashed a smile.  
  
"You called, Mam?" The steward, a tall Indian-looking man asked, with a strong accent.  
  
"Yes," Lara begun, leaning closer to read the name tag. "Jab, could you please bring me a glass of water."  
  
"Certainly, Mam." The steward nodded towards Jean-Yves. "Do you think your companion would like something to drink?"  
  
Lara turned to look at Jean. Going through a minor brainstorm, she shook Jean gently. "Jean?" she whispered.  
  
No answer. Lara tugged a little harder. "Jean!"  
  
Jean's slumber was interfered and he woke up. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at the questioning eyes of Lara Croft.  
  
"Morning, sunshine," Lara smiled, blinking. "Something to drink?" she asked, turning towards the air steward, still waiting and smiling as graciously as ever.  
  
"Ahem. perhaps a cup of coffee."  
  
The air steward disappeared. Jean pulled out his tray, and Lara followed his example.  
  
"Did you sleep long?" she asked.  
  
"Actually, I didn't. Just a few minutes."  
  
Lara kept smiling, but her upper lip curved the smile into an apologetic one. "Sorry. I just thought we could go through our travelling plans."  
  
"Sure, as soon as I get my coffee."  
  
Lara dug out a piece of paper from her pocket.  
  
"This is a letter from our, umm, travel agent. Lieutenant Dean Calder."  
  
Jean looked puzzled.  
  
"Thanks to your father and my employer at the British Museum I managed to contact him. He's the son of an American archaeologist working for the museum."  
  
Jean and Lara received their drinks. Lara emptied her glass in a second, as Jean got prepared for a cup of liquid caffeine. Jean was sure Lara had arranged everything ready for them. She needed not explain everything to him. She knew people - even more so than Jean. Her resourcefullness was overwhelming.  
  
Lara crushed her cup, pushed back by Jean's obvious reluctance to listen. Since he'd called her to invite her to Paris she had been a little offended by his almost ignorant silence. Lara wondered why he had left for the trip. In her wildest and most pessimistic dreams Jean was there to steal her prize, but somehow she knew that was not the case. If Jean had taken a liking in her - why wouldn't he say or do anything to indicate it?  
  
She was indeed offended by his behaviour, she had to admit it. Childish, yes, as she would have been perhaps happy with Jean if he had buzzed around her the moment after he'd met her. Like so many guys had done before. Jean seemed always judging her actions, thinking hard what to say and do. Feeling like a teen, Lara found it hard to believe that it was possible that Jean was as insecure as she felt herself be. Knowing this was a simple business trip, she was still aware of nurturing a spiritual box of feelings she wasn't sure she wanted to exist.  
  
Taking a pause to figure whether she was going to just pass the letter to Jean or have a serious conversation with him, Lara started braiding her hair. Suddenly, Jean put down his cup and turned to Lara. The movement was so sudden Lara paused, her hands behind her neck holding half of her hair.  
  
"Yes?" Lara asked, sensing the question needed to be asked.  
  
"Let me." Jean was looking for the word 'braid', but his English went sailing and left him on the beach, ".do that." He finished.  
  
Surprised, Lara measured Jean with her gaze, and then turned her back to her. As if holding a wishbone, he grabbed the locks of hair and started braiding. Lara bended her neck back. "Is this some kind of a bonding ritual?" she asked, then suddenly slapped a hand on her mouth. "I wasn't really supposed to say that," she replied to herself.  
  
Behind her, Jean was smiling. Nonchalant but amused, he asked, "So, what's with our lieutenant?"  
  
Lara tried to turn her head a bit, but her hair was in Jean's tight grip.  
  
"He's arranged us a transport to Siem Reap, two kilometres to the Wat temple plus organized us into a secure hotel in Phnom Penh. Thank you," Lara said silently, as Jean passed her a ready plait. Lara tied it with a ribbon, and then turned to Jean.  
  
Looking into Lara's eyes, Jean said: "Yes, Lara Croft, that was a bonding ritual. I'm hoping that we'll make a good time."  
  
"Time?"  
  
"Pardon. Team," Jean said, cursing his English once again. For his surprise, Lara smiled. Honestly and sweetly.  
  
"Me, too," she replied carefully.  
  
Don Muang Airport, Bangkok 9:01 a.m.  
  
Throwing her bag on the small steel table in the modern ladies' toilet, Lara took a look around. It was morning, usually one of the busiest times of the day for airports, but wonderously, the bathroom was empty. She had left Jean waiting outside after insisting on changing clothes. She had realized the instant they had arrived that her jeans were going to dehydrate her completely with their thickness.  
  
Licking her finger and using it to adjust the shape of her eyebrow, Lara opened her bag. She dug out a Mars bar, a pair of plain khaki shorts and a T-shirt. Plus a pair of hiking boots. And sunglasses.  
  
After stashing down a Mars bar and jumping into her shorts and a scoopneck T-shirt, she lifted her leg on the table to tie her boot laces.  
  
Then the toilet door opened and a cleaning lady, smiling with a hole-filled row of teeth, entered, starting to mop up the place. Lara nodded at her and continued her gymnastic lace-tying moves. She finished and banged her leg off the table, gathering her things. Hurrying to the door, she slipped on the wet floor and ended up sitting on the floor. Cursing her now-aching bottom, she got up and out - after facing the cleaner's amused smile.  
  
Muttering to herself dressed in a full tomb raiding gear, she walked back to Jean. Together they went to look for a porter.  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	3. Chapter 3

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part III: Garden of The Five Towers by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 3  
  
US Air Force Air Hangar 3  
  
Bangkok, Thailand  
  
11:24 a.m.  
  
"Let me see. Miss Lara Croft and Mr Jean-Yves Ducarmine?"  
  
"Yes. Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant Calder."  
  
Lara's reply raised a delighted smile on the young lieutenant's face. "Welcome to Bangkok. Unless you have other plans, we have a plane waiting as agreed."  
  
"No further plans," Jean assured him, and offered his hand to take Lara's suitcase from her but she refused. The lieutenant nodded at them and made a gesture suggesting that they follow him. Lara took the lead before the officer, Jean following them.  
  
"So, Miss Croft, what is this urgent business about?"  
  
Lara smiled coolly. "That is classified information."  
  
"Says who?" the lieutenant teased, making Lara grow uneasy.  
  
"Says I," Lara said, bumping her suitcase on the lieutenant's stomach, forcing him to carry it, as Lara quickened her pace on the bushy sand trail towards a small, private airfield. Jean, smiling secretly to Lara, shrugged to the lieutenant who had turned to him with a questioning face, and continued behind Lara, who was walking further ahead.  
  
Another self-acclaimed womaniser, Lara predicted, secretly feeling glad that Jean wasn't one. Glad that he had joined her on the trip. Lara pushed aside some bushes as she continued towards the airfield. Pausing to look back to see if Jean and Lieutenant Calder were still following her, she felt a sharp sting in her side. Slapping the point where she'd felt the sting, she looked at her hand. A dead mosquito. Wiping off the crushed insect to her shorts, she continued her walk.  
  
The old army plane shook violently in every little gust of wind over the Cambodean border. Jean paced between the cockpit and the passenger space, made restless by their long flight from London to Thailand.  
  
Lara sat silently in the seat she had chosen, carefully belted. The bright sunlight reddened her hair as she wiped off some dust from the window next to her. She could have dug out one of her many books from her bag, but it didn't feel right. She had too many thoughts to occupy her. Before every of her adventures - there had not yet been very many - she had felt slightly nervous, but just for herself. Jean was. wonderful, she admitted, but hardly an adventurer. He didn't seem to mind dirt or creeping insects, but he still seemed more of a librarian. Lara hoped for a sign for her subconsciousness, a sign that Jean would be worthy as a partner. She'd hate to have someone to drag along. She smiled to herself, somehow knowing it wouldn't happen. After all, Jean was a man, and men seemed to protect their honour before their own comfort. Lara wouldn't be patronized. 'On the other hand, an occasional reassuring tap on the shoulder doesn't do bad to anyone,' she thought. Lara felt terribly young as she looked at Jean, stretching in the walkway. He must have had plenty of ladyfriends. Plenty and plenty. Lara felt like she was always behaving so badly - doing what she wanted, even sometimes completely ignoring the high standards people expected from her due to her high social rank. Jean didn't seem to mind, though, but the fact that her behaviour seemed to amuse him annoyed Lara slightly.  
  
"Lara?"  
  
"Mmm-hmm?" Lara didn't turn her head from the window.  
  
"Come and take a look at this!"  
  
Lara slowly unbuckled her seatbelt and walked to the other side of the small plane, where Jean stood staring out of the window. Outside, they could see a wide, muddy river twisting and turning its way across the moist forest.  
  
"Mekong River." Lara nodded. " 'As the waters of Mekong floweth to the shore, the kingdom of the Funan prospected and grew strong and wide.' " she quoted.  
  
"King Ishanavarman's tomb engraving, 7th century." Jean replied, impressing Lara. She made a mental note to stop testing Jean's knowledge in every twist and turn.  
  
The plane took a long curve - they were landing. The magnificent view of the Mekong delta slowly changed to the city of Phnom Penh, growing bigger in the windows as their flight approached its end. The pilot soon informed Lara and Jean of the landing.  
  
Jean started a conversation after they had sat down. "This went suprisingly easily, if you think about the civil war."  
  
"Well, these are poor people we're talking about. They can't afford fighters or rocket launchers to protect themselves. Planes are relatively safe, if not talking about tourist jets. And they're not even flying here at the moment. It's a sad thing that some of the soldiers here are even women or children."  
  
Jean wasn't in the mood for serious politics. "Think about that. Women with poles and rocket launchers chasing away the Vietnamese."  
  
"The female liberation front still has a lot to do around here." Lara sighed.  
  
"I think otherwise. Isn't it the best kind of equality if both men and women go to war?"  
  
"What about the children? Who will look after them?" Lara waved her arms in a move of desperate uncertainty to make a stronger point.  
  
Jean didn't have an answer to that. She was suprised for Lara's compassion for the Cambodian people. In Peru she had not seemed such a humanist - more of an underaged gun-toting Indiana Jones. But she had proved to be thoughtful - and very determined in her ways of doing things.  
  
"Guess that's a family decision then," Jean said quietly.  
  
Lara nodded silently.  
  
"But think about it - you with a rocket launcher. I'd say you'd rock a couple guys' libidos pretty hard."  
  
Lara looked at Jean with a half-amused, half-annoyed look on her face. "If the further exploration of this subject encloses posing for magazines and taking artist names such as "Gina the Swedish Goddess" then forgive me Jean, I'll pass," she replied, with no hint of a smile whatsoever.  
  
Jean didn't say a word; he was perfectly happy with marveling at Lara's annoying ability of completely cutting off a conversation she didn't like.  
  
Flood season in Phnom Penh. The crummy houses along the 258th street outside just downtown had a good five inches of water on its surface, but the Cambodeans did not seem to mind. Their little motorcycles were everywhere to carry passengers, tourists, chickens, fruits, of laughing children around. Their humming was an ever-present sound. The air was refreshingly misty but grey, as Lara and Jean-Yves checked in to Hotel Sofitel Cambodiana, one of the only big hotels still fully functional after a long time under war.  
  
After their arrival in Phnom Penh, one of the safer cities in Cambodia, they had rented a rickshaw. Jean had insisted on calling it a 'cyclo' as they did in France - Lara had gently mocked him on his French accent, grinning in the warm Asian rain. She had looked so cheerful and cute in the warm rain that it had inspired Jean to kiss her on the cheek. But for the first time after Peru, she had turned her cheek away and kissed him 'the only acceptable way', as she had once told Jean in Peru; a deep, lasting kiss on the mouth. A woman full of surprises, Jean had thought. They had spent the rest of the rickshaw drive looking at the sights and grinning slightly.  
  
'I seriously need my excercise' Lara thought afterwards. 'I'm getting in a seriously uncharacteristic mood'. She was a bit embarrassed, and cursed her own tendecy of blushing slightly. She stood up to have a better view of the city, but they soon arrived at the hotel. "Let's go," she said after the rikshaw had stopped and they had paid the driver. "There must be a swimming pool and there's no doubt I'll take advantage of it," she commented, making a huge leap over the rickshaw's door.  
  
After settling into their suite with a living room and two bedrooms in the top floor of Hotel Sofitel Cambodiana, they headed for the French embassy to meet their contacts - a group of French and American soldiers who were supposed to drive them through the thick jungle to Siem Reap, a small town near the Tonle Sap Lake and most of all, just a stone's throw away from the temple of Angkor Wat. Jean had done most of the talking - he obviously spoke very good French. Lara had followed the conversation with nods and tired smiles. Her earlier enthusiasm had turned to downright yawns and two- syllable replies to questions by the time they got back to their hotel. Jean-Yves had borrowed a book from her and Lara had informed Jean that she was going to go to the hotel gym for a quick break on the treadmill and to do some twenty laps in the pool. Jean sent her on her way with a relaxed smile - they were both relieved that everything had gone well so far. The war was obviously fought most in the thick jungles. Phnom Penh was silently floating in the flood season's atmosphere - yells from the fruit market, sounds of the small motorcycles, honking of the rickshaw horns.  
  
The old city was slowly disappearing into the shadows as Lara, dressed in leggings and a swimsuit, sneaked to the silent corridor and rode the elevator to the floor where the gym and the swimming pool were located.  
  
Hotel Sofitel Cambodiana was almost modern, clean, and civilized. Probably in favor of foreign politicians, the banished King Sihanouk's visitors and diplomats who dared to visit the country. Lara felt serene, her head was clear, but she was extremely tired. She opened the ladies' locker room and went in. All the locker doors were open - she would probably have the gym all to herself. As she left her towel and soap in the locker, Lara wondered silently why she had not invited Jean to join her. She wasn't used to company when doing her exercises, nor was she used to travelling company. As friendly and charming Jean was, despite that fact that they were becoming almost an obvious pair, Lara didn't know him well enough to feel completely at ease when talking to him. 'Goddammit, I'm terrible in my social affairs,' Lara cursed bitterly, and went for a run on the treadmill.  
  
After a good six minutes of running, Lara started to feel unusually tired. Her every muscle was silently burning, but not because of the run - six minutes was only about twenty percent of her usual running time. Shrugging to herself in the dimly lit gym, Lara suffocated a huge yawn and wandered to the pool room. She had a mild headache - probably because of the lack of fresh air in the Thailand plane, Lara reasoned.  
  
The pool room was quiet and inviting. A clear, deep swimming pool the shape of a circle. It was framed by replicas of ancient statues. Lara recognized one statue - a very unrealistic lion statue - a singha, a guardian lion. There were no lions in Asia, so the ancient Khmers had never seen one. They had to guess what a creature they had heard stories of, looked like.  
  
Another statue portrayed two bare-breasted dancing women - Apsaras, celestial nymphs dancing. Lara walked closer and run her finger along the fine crevices of the statue. It was an excellent replica - almost too good. Lara looked at her finger, expecting to see gray paint - but saw nothing.  
  
The statues were real. And heavenly expensive. 'Another example of the rape of a culture by its habitants - ancient treasures are only useful as hotel pool decorations.'  
  
Touching her temple, Lara threw away the towel she had wrapped around her and shivered in her swimsuit. The evening was chilly and the pool room was not heated. Expecting the cool water to cool down her pounding head, Lara walked the underwater stairs to the pool. The touch of the chilly water made her muscles ache even worse. She stood shivering in the pool, eyeing the statues. She started swimming and after a couple of strokes she suddenly felt so awful she had to stop. Reasoning that she must have caught another pharoh's revenge from an unpeeled apple or such thing, Lara waded out of the pool and changed to a bathrobe.  
  
Yearning for a clean bed and an aspirin Lara rode the elevator up.  
  
Their suite was silent and dark. Jean was sleeping in his own room - the moon declared its nightly presence outside the window. Lara grabbed a hairbrush and cleared her hair in front of the living room mirror before moving to her own room.  
  
On her table, was a plate covered with a food warmer. Underneath was a steamy portion of chicken casserole, and underneath the chilly water bottle placed on her bedside table, she found a note.  
  
"Good swim? We have an early start tomorrow - enjoy your nightly lunch, cherie Lara. Sleep well.  
  
Jean"  
  
Fingering her wet hair, Lara stood in front of her window, wondering how much good luck one could possibly have with a travelling companion.  
  
The muddy road twisted its way through the Asian jungle - rain forest, vines, khmers and vietnamese soldiers, leopards, thousands of chattering monkeys and occasional sounds of gunshots.  
  
The civil war was still visible and vivid.  
  
Every once in awhile the driver slowed down, ordering Jean and Lara to duck down - they were approaching a restless area. They had been stopped my red khmers with assault rifles just once - and they had let the jeep pass their roadblock - Jean was probably as nervous as Lara was during that incident - they both knew Lara had hidden her guns in her toiletry bag.  
  
Due to the flood season also visible in the capital Phnom Penh the roads had turned into a very hard drive. It was bumpy, and a steady rain kept falling from the grey skies of Cambodia as their jeep made its way towards Siem Reap along the River Tonle Sap.  
  
Wonderously, Lara had slept through most of the drive - something Jean considered impossible. She had been complaining of a headache that morning but it had presumably already passed. Jean had estimated that they would be in Siem Reap before sundown, but the wet road slowed them down noticeably.  
  
"How much more left?" Jean yelled to the driver, a young French soldier.  
  
"Excusez-moi?" he yelled back, leaning back to hear better through the huge noise the mud and the jeep were making.  
  
"How much more to go?"  
  
"An hour, Monsieur DuCarmine!" the driver yelled, and Jean nodded. Their backseat man in the pickup-model Jeep had finally unloaded his assault rifle, and started dozing.  
  
Lara opened her eyes, stretched, and sat up, holding on the the edges of the pickup.  
  
"We have an hour left!" Jean yelled so that she would hear. Lara glanced at her watch, ran a hand through her fringe, and greeted the reddish, setting sun. Crossing her hiking boot-clad legs, she turned her head to the wind as the jeep rushed its way on the banks of Lake Tonle Sap, its still waters gleaming in the afternoon sun. Fishermen in their narrow, tall boats waved their hands prudently as they passed.  
  
The sun was as hot as ever as the jeep rushed its way back to the jungle. The area consisted of huge, green hills, separated by wide, misty rivers. Every once in awhile they passed a smaller village with dusty, sandy ground, chickens and low bushes.  
  
Lara was stunned by the utter beauty of the poor country. As she was worried for her own safety - despite the fact that there had not been any big battles near Tonle Sap very recently - she felt as if the jungle was waiting for the rages of war to begin again. Vietnamese soldiers were everywhere - guarding the villages, protecting the occasional roadblocks.  
  
The khmer rouges went silently in the bushes. They were the rebels - desperately wanting to get rid of the Vietnamese that had almost literally taken over the country after the French left. 'All these people want is independence' Lara thought sadly, suddenly remembering his father's attitude towards such things. As a British aristocrat he had been a conservative, an imperialist who thought Britain had the right to take whatever it needed from insignificant countries such as India. Lara wondered silently if Jean agreed with him - he was a Frenchman and from an upperclass family. She made a mental note to discuss that with Jean. She hoped that there would be enough humanist in him to think imperialism should be extinct.  
  
They passed a sign declaring "Siem Reap 5 miles" in Cambodian and another sign warning of mines. In a nearby field Jean and Lara saw about a dozen young boys crawling in the muddy ground.  
  
"What are they doing?!" Lara yelled to the soldier who was sitting in the back with them.  
  
"Clearing the area of mines. Many Cambodians are optimistic about the upcoming peace negotiations so they are starting the peacework already."  
  
Lara nodded silently, aware of the fact that Cambodia had more amputees per 10,000 people than any other country in the world. The mines were everywhere.  
  
She looked at Jean. He sat in the back end of the pickup, his legs hanging down from the ledge. His sunglasses caught the sun gleaming through the narrow holes in the ceiling the trees formed. Lara moved to the back and sat next to him, smiling as she had to blink hard because of the sun.  
  
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As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	4. Chapter 4

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part III: Garden of The Five Towers by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 4  
  
"So," Jean started after they had unpacked their things in their rooms in the shabby Grand Hotel d'Angkor and met in the garden, "are you too tired or could we take a short walk around the city?"  
  
The suggestion to take a walk around the city would have sounded insane in Phnom Penh, but not in Siem Reap. The city was incredibly small, with some food stalls, about five not-so-luxurious hotels, some restaurants from the French period and an airline office. Tourism had restarted in Cambodia in 1986, but that summer no tourist group had dared enter the country - the peace negotiations were nearly ongoing and the fighters acted as though they wanted to cast their final vengeance on each other.  
  
Lara and Jean were sitting in the tropical garden of the hotel. They had both changed clothes; Jean had replaced his dirty T-shirt and shorts with clean ones, and considering the Lara's choice of clothes, the question about taking a city stroll seemed unnecessary. She looked like any ordinary tourist. White linnen dress and sandals. And a brimmed hat with round sunglasses. Taking the glasses off, Lara replied, "What do you think I'm dressed for if not a walk? A marathon?" she said, unable to keep some bitterness out of her voice. Travelling always made her a little edgy - she hated being cramped up with other people with no space for her thoughts.  
  
"Pardon, Lara, I do not yet know you well enough to know if you're a sport dresser or just aware of the current situation."  
  
Lara was amused. "Sport dresser?"  
  
"You dress for fun when you can, overdressing for sitting in the garden."  
  
"Jean, if I didn't know you're French, I'd have taken that as a sarcasm."  
  
Jean grinned at her. "How do ya know it wasn't, mate?" he replied, overdoing a Scottish accent.  
  
"Let's go," Lara said, leaping down from the low garden wall she had been sitting on.  
  
Siem Reap was, indeed, small. It wasn't very much like a city, more of a group of hotels, temples, and roads some ill-humored demigod had sprinkled near the lake Tonle Sap. Lara and Jean crossed a bridge that lead them over the Siem Reap river and started walking towards the road leading to Angkor Wat as the sun was setting. The sun was merely a huge, sparkling star, framed by grey clouds, forming a contrasty background to the city.  
  
"I'm starting to really like this country," Lara said, as they were approaching the fountain on the other side of the town area.  
  
"So am I. Did you see anything interesting in the jungle?" he asked politely.  
  
"Well, I can't say I have seen a leopard before. Nor have I seen elephants in the wild."  
  
"Nor can I say that I've seen khmer rouges in the wild before," Jean said, and they both laughed.  
  
"Seriously, Jean," Lara underlined her mental note, "what do you think of all this? I read that most of the statues in the nearby temples have been decapitated by the khmers. I'm all up for their independence crusade, but as an archaeologist."  
  
". you hardly consider destroying ancient treasures for fun fundamental when talking about independence," Jean finished her sentence. "What can I do but agree. Are you hungry by the way? I checked the guidebook you had and it said that there's a nice restaurant somewhere on the other side of the river."  
  
"Can't we get something nearer the hotel? I'm getting kinda tired, actually. Lets' go and see the fountain before it gets dark and return to the hotel. I'm sensing the headache is coming back, " Lara explained apologetically.  
  
"I was almost sure you were so packed full of energy after we'd get here."  
  
"I usually am, it's just that. "  
  
"Strange things happen in the world," Jean finished, taking Lara's hand and leading her up the stairs to the Siem Reap fountain. Lara followed, wondering whose fault was the fact that they never really seemed to have deeper-than-average conversations. Perhaps they were just mere friends. Lara wanted to be perfectly happy with it, but somehow she wasn't. And the fact that she didn't know why annoyed her a great deal.  
  
The Temple of Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument ever built.  
  
It was early morning, the only observers of two young archaeologists making their way through the temple yards were monkeys.  
  
Lara Croft and Jean-Yves DuCarmine walked down endless stone corridors, photographed the beautiful reliefs of the temple, and shares a compassionate sigh of sorrow everytime they passed a decapitated guardian lion or other statue.  
  
Near a corner of the corridor leading to the library Lara stopped. The temple was silent, unless you wanted to count the monkeys. They had kept quiet the whole time, as Angkor Wat was supposedly used as a post by the khmers.  
  
"What is it?" Jean whispered, remembering a certain night in Peru, where Lara had also stopped - that time to point out a deadly trap.  
  
Lara peeked behind a corner and quickly pulled back. "Khmers," she whispered, reaching for her right hand pistol.  
  
"Are you sure that's wise?" Jean asked sceptically, as Lara loaded her gun.  
  
"This is just life insurance. Do you think there's another way to gallery of the thousand Buddhas?"  
  
"Of course we could go around the rest of the temple - but didn't you say that South gallery was a part of the collapsed area?" Jean reminded her.  
  
"True. Damn it all," Lara cursed, and peeked behind the corner again. In the middle of the bas relief corridor were a group of khmer, walking around. It was a wonder the archaeologists had not heard them or that the khmers had not heard Lara and Jean arrive. "They must be using the corridor as an ammunition storage," Lara whispered and felt a shudder as she noticed the assault rifles and the rocket launchers. Lara leaned back on the side where Jean was, and her eyes caught his worried eyes.  
  
"I could try to take them from here, but there are too many." Lara talked to herself.  
  
"What are you talking about?" Jean spat out, unsure of what he'd heard.  
  
"I don't think we can avoid battle if we want to get in." Lara said nonchalantly.  
  
"Then we don't go in." Jean said, but Lara continued loading her guns. She sat down to the ground. She didn't notice her leg peeking around the corner. There was a sudden change in the khmer's tones. Lara and Jean could hear guns being loaded and footsteps approaching. The two archaeologists looked at each other - and started running for their lives along the bas relief corridor back to where they had come.  
  
Khmers rushed from behind the corner, yelling and firing point blank at the escaping Lara and Jean. They kept urnning and turned behind the next corner - Lara decided it would have been blatantly stupid for her to start firing. It would perhaps cost her a second too much. They rushed behind the next corner, and Jean stopped as she noticed Lara gone. He quickly glanced around, panicky, then he felt a sudden hand pulling him to a nearby wall. Lara pulled him towards a staircase hidden behind a large, headless Vishnu statue leading to a dark corridor that was not visible to the gallery where the khmers had just rushed in right behind Jean.  
  
In complete silence and darkness, Lara and Jean waited for the footsteps and voices to disappear. From their hiding place they could see that a soldier had sat down on the corridor. There was no way they could get out the way they came.  
  
Jean turned back to the darkness. and noticed Lara gone.  
  
Lara Croft wiped off the sweat the escapade had formed on her forehead, and leaned on the wall in the darkness. She had run past the entrance to the dark stone alley and continued in utter silence deeper to the depths of the temple. Her head was now pounding, something Lara knew could not have been just for the run and the heat.  
  
She had waken up the night before, sweaty and somehow light-headed. She had had some fever, and stumbling to the bathroom had made her feel awful. She had spent two hours in bed, shivering before catching another array of sleep.  
  
Reasoning that the area was safe, Lara dug out a small flashlight from her pocket and continued down the narrow corridor. In the flickering MagLite light she noticed that the corridor was filled with outsandingly beautiful reliefs. She stopped in front of one. Thanking God for the fact that she could read some Sanskrit, she started deciphering an inscription. First there was a picture of Harihara - a Cambodian god, a combination of Hindu gods Shiva and Buddha - holding a sabre before a group of obvious enemies. Suddenly remembering Jean, Lara wondered if she should go back. There were two corridors leading to the cellars of the temple behind the statue. If Jean had started to follow the right one - he was to arrive soon. If he took the wrong one - he'd return to the statue - or if he got out, went back to the hotel. He would be okay, Lara assured herself, shivering slightly. Was it cold? Not really. Something had raised goosebumps on Lara's skin. Shrugging to herself, and coughing slightly, she returned to the inscription. In the next picture there was Harihara again , this time standing next to someone, perhaps a king? Harihara was handing something to the person - Lara's heart jumped as she saw what it was in the faint light of the flaslight - The Iris. Quickly, Lara moved to the next picture. Actually, it was no picture. It was a phrase, very hard to decipher.  
  
"Continue. if.. You." Lara whispered to herself, reading the text, "would rather be a tiger for a day than a bird for a hundred years," the inscription read.  
  
Suddenly, a fit of coughing hit Lara, forcing her to lean on the wall. Deciding it was time to go back, Lara took a last glance at the reliefs. Preparing to leave, she took a quick glance behind the next corner, just to make sure nothing lurked in the shadows. She stopped as she noticed that behind the next corner was a huge stone door. She walked to the door, running her fingers on the raw surface.  
  
The door was incredibly beautiful - with tigers, elephants, birds and humans carved in the surface to an endless chain of life. Flowers and complicated ornaments framed the scene, and Lara noticed four so-called Naga snakes carved on the four corners of the door.  
  
There was also an another inscription.  
  
"Of all the footprints The elephant's is the greatest; Of all exercises of humbleness Considering your very own Death is the greatest".  
  
Lara pondered the text for a second, pondering its significance. It this door lead to the other route to the Iris, the text must have meant something. Lara studied the door more carefully, and a wide, wicked smile spread on her face as she noticed that all the human reliefs on the door were missing something.  
  
'So that's where the golden skulls von Croy called worthless trash go. Old Werner-dear, you're about to witness a victory greater than any of yours,' Lara swore to herself as she started walking back to the huge statue guarding their escape route doorway, feeling tired. The other corridor was probably a route out, Lara reasoned, and continued walking. After the revelation of the door faded, she started noticing her headache again.  
  
It was crushing and pounding. And she felt incredibly tired. Her muscles ached - probably because of the run. Lara continued to the other corridor after arriving to the doorway statue, and in a short while she arrived on the temple yard. Wondering why she was panting and coughing for such a ridiculous exertion as walking down corridors, she started her slow return to Siem Reap, nine miles from the temple. Jean was nowhere to be seen.  
  
Hours and hours later, Lara woke up to the sound of her hotel room door opening. Blinking hard as a late evening sun twisted through the curtains to, how it almost seemed, straight to Lara's eyes. She stood up slowly, her head spinning. Sinking back on the bed, she decided hazily, that whoever it was, the matter should wait until she could get some sleep.  
  
It was Jean, who determinately walked next to the bed and started shaking her hard. "Lara? Lara, it's time to get up."  
  
"Are you crazy?" Lara stuttered and pulled a pillow on her head. "It's midnight. Probably. Midnight or so."  
  
"It's not midnight," Jean's stern voice answered, and someone slipped a hand on Lara's forehead under the pillow.  
  
"Stop poking!" she complained, annoyed. "My head is bad enough as it is."  
  
Taking the pillow from her, Jean sat down to the bed. Lara sat up slowly, stretching and feeling chilly.  
  
"You have fever," Jean said quietly. "I wanted to ask you something in Phnom but I forgot.  
  
Trying her own forehead and cursing silently but light-headedly, Lara asked, "So, what was it?"  
  
Jean got up and disappeared outside the bedroom for a second. He returned with a book; "Guidebook to Cambodia", with a print of paper inside it. Jean pulled out the separate sheet of paper and pointed the encicrled word he had noticed in the aeroplane. Doxycycline. A malaria preventative medicine.  
  
"You're taking this, right?" Jean asked Lara, who sat on the bed, wondering why the room kept spinning around.  
  
Lara leaned closer, read the name and nodded. "Twice a day with water."  
  
"What about mefloquine?" Jean asked, sounding slightly concerned.  
  
Lara shrugged. "I'm allergic to that and cloroquine. Cycline should be enough."  
  
"But mefloquine is the only one that really prevents all the types of malaria in Cambodia.There are many types that doxycycline doesn't kill."  
  
Lara sighed. "And what is the meaning of this medical lecture, Jean dear?" Lara yawned, feeling cold. She got another fit of coughing. Jean brought her his bottle of water.  
  
"Thank you," Lara said between gulping from his water bottle, "see, I've just caught the latest flu."  
  
Jean eyed her suspiciously. She seemed quite alright, despite the alarming fever, so he didn't say anything.  
  
"Jean - I think I found the entrance. The other entrance, I mean. I don't remember telling you everything about my last trip here."  
  
Jean sat down to a chair next to the window. Lara dug out two aspirins from her bedside table drawer, and after swallowing them continued; "We broke the floor in the South gallery to get in. We ended up in a huge corridor, that every once in awhile, lead through temple yards with waterfalls and such. As we proceeded further, I kept finding these golden skulls. Lara rose from the bed, walked to her suitcase, still open on the floor, and dug out a plastic bag. She poured its contents on the bed.  
  
Small, golden skulls.  
  
Picking up one of them, she continued, "I found eight of them. After hours of exploring, we found our ways to a temple yard, that ,in the inscriptions found in King Jayavarman's tomb that were our main reference when looking for the Iris, was called 'Garden of The Five Towers'. It was surrounded by countless guardian lion statues, and there were two huge doors. The one that we used, was referred as something like "the path of the virtuous". The one we couldn't open was called "the path of the heretical"."  
  
"Yes?" Jean was getting excited. Lara had obviously found or realized something.  
  
"After we entered the dark hallway behind the statue I found a door in which the golden skulls work as a key. Next to the wall was a relief with the Iris in it."  
  
"Bull's eye, Lara. Give me some of that water, let's raise a toast."  
  
Lara coughed slightly and looked at Jean, puzzled. "A toast to what?"  
  
"A toast for archaeology. And you, Lara Croft. I know I like you more than a decent colleague should."  
  
Lara misled, passing Jean the bottle after drinking from it herself. "Colleagues aside, partner. Three hoorays to archaeology." 'And us,' Lara almost dared to add, still remaining more careful than perhaps was necessary.  
  
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As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	5. Chapter 5

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part III: Garden of The Five Towers by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 5  
  
The next morning came for Lara as easily as any morning comes to one running a considerable fever. Dragging herself to the shover, she had her suspicions about the so-called flu she had caught, but thinking about the Iris made her almost forgot how awful she was feeling. No matter how hot she turned the water, she almost felt as if she was freezing. 'Must be the fever', Lara thought, as she opened the bathroom door and let the steam out into the fresh, flowery Siem Reap air. Her window had a view to the garden, and, draped in a towel, Lara sat down in front of the table and enjoyed the scene. A couple of monkeys were running in the garden and the hotel keepers' toddler-aged children were running around naked. One of them had a prosthetic leg and walking sticks, but it did not seem to slow the little girl down. As she noticed Lara, she smiled with her almost perfect teeth. Lara waved her hand to the little girl. The girl looked at her, and disappeared for a second. Then she appeared suddenly in front of Lara's window, her hand outstretched, holding a mango. Lara thanked her, gave the little girl her last Mars bar, and then wandered to the hotel corridor in her dressing robe. She knocked on Jean's door. Cursing her now ever-present headache, she waited for Jean to answer.  
  
The door opened with a screech.  
  
"Morning," Lara said, pulling the hem of her robe tighter. She marveled at Jean's room. Never had she seen a male student's room or flat as neat as Jean's.  
  
"Morning," Jean replied, and continued buttoning up his shirt. "Listen, I've been thinking. I know you'd never even consider it, but for the record's sake, why don't we cancel the temple trip for today and go to the Lake?"  
  
"Are you kidding?" Lara asked politely, leaning on the back of a chair.  
  
"Judging by your reaction, probably," Jean sighed.  
  
"Actually," Lara said, "I could use some more hours of sleep."  
  
Jean-Yves stopped at his heels. This was not what he had been expecting from Lara Croft, who the day before had seemed like no matter what virus was colonizing her body, she would have gone and hunted the Iris, even if it meant piggybacking Jean-Yves to the goal.  
  
"If you say so," Jean said, still surprised. "Was this what you came to tell me?"  
  
"No, actually, I was just wandering," Lara said, and returned to her room to clean her guns.  
  
After a good ten hours of sleep, Lara woke up. It felt like she spent more time waking up than hunting down the Iris. Or so it seemed - waking up had became very difficult. Letting go of the safe haze served fresh by her unconsciousness required throwing pillows around, taking a shower, and almost shooting herself in the leg when she accidentally unplugged the safety clip while placing her guns in their holsters.  
  
This time, though, waking up did not seem like such a marathon. Lara felt excellent. She jumped out of the bed, checked her watch - too late for Angkor Wat. 'Oh well', she said to herself, 'time to freshen up things here a bit'. She dressed in heeled sandals, a spaghetti strap top, and a long, linen skirt, and went to knock on Jean's door.  
  
It was unlocked, so Lara stepped in. Jean stood on his bed, surrounded by piles and piles of books, laserprints and copies of book pages. He raised his head and saw Lara.  
  
"Evening, Miss Croft. What's the occasion?"  
  
Lara pulled him up from the bed. "Tomorrow we're going to recover the Angkorean Iris. Tonight we're going to recover eleven drinks and a nang sbaek."  
  
"A what?" Jean asked, already catching Lara's drift.  
  
"A nang sbaek," Lara explained, forming a flower with her palms and pointing at the shadow casting on the wall, "is a shadow play."  
  
And indeed they did. The play, its plot forming scenes of the Ramayana, a holy book for both the ancient and modern Cambodians, was a tasteful and charming event, and after it Lara and Jean moved to Prassat Sonr, a night club west of their hotel. Lara was in a surprisingly good mood, despite the fact that they had wasted one day. Both had three glasses of wine - both Lara and Jean thought in their silence that the other was well enough brought up not to get drunk. It was well over midnight when they started the moderately long walk back to Grand Hotel d'Angkor.  
  
"You know Jean," Lara said, half-laughing as they were walking down Sivutha Street, "where would you be rather than here?"  
  
"I don't think you need to be told this," Jean said, putting his arm around Lara's shoulders, "But I don't want to be anywhere but here."  
  
"Do I have anything to do with that opinion?" Lara asked silently, all laugh gone from her voice.  
  
"Maybe," Jean teased.  
  
"Don Juan," Lara threw back, and quickened his pace. "I'll race you to the hotel!"  
  
"You kidding? You'll stumble to your death in that skirt and heels."  
  
"Remember the killers I had at your father's birthday gala," Lara asked, accentuating the word 'gala', "you know what I did with them?"  
  
Jean laughed, suspecting a joke. "I wonder?"  
  
"Let's say a certain river has had a good, leathery meal."  
  
Jean half-laughed, knowing Lara was trying to make him guess. They were approaching the bridge across the Siem Reap river, and Lara sat down on a large rock near the bridge gates.  
  
"Seine?"  
  
"Bull's eye."  
  
"You threw your shoes to the Seine?" Jean asked, amused, not knowing why.  
  
Lara nodded, got up, and continued down the bridge.  
  
"What about you? Where would you be rather than here?"  
  
"Nowhere, Jean. Nowhere. You're way too good company. You know what I wonder sometimes?"  
  
"Tell me," Jean replied, and Lara surprised him with a quick kiss. They continued down the bridge.  
  
"I wonder when I'm going to grow up," she joked, and Jean kissed her back.  
  
"What do you mean?" Jean asked.  
  
"I wonder when I'm going to stop running around and begin wanting a family and a steady income in some ridiculous large corporation where promotions are handed on by the bustline rank."  
  
"What's wrong with running around?" Jean asked the silent Cambodian night. They walked to the hotel in silence. Quietly, they walked through the lightless reception to the corridor. Lara waved her hand to Jean for a goodnight wish, but he grabbed her arm just as Lara was stepping in to her own room.  
  
"Lara?" he asked with no hint whatsoever of humor in his tone.  
  
"Yes?" she asked, tugging her skirt.  
  
"Marry me."  
  
Seconds later, Lara closed and locker her door. Feeling like a teenager running away from home, she double-checked the door lock and sat down on her bed.  
  
'I can not believe what I just heard.'  
  
Lara kicked off her sandals and fell on her back on the bed. Remembering her joke about growing up, she felt as if it had crept back behind her and bit her in the ankle. How could she feel both very taken and furious at once?  
  
'How could he not understand?'  
  
She sat up again - gazed at her surroundings in the dark room. The moon shone outside, and someone in Siem Reap was having a feast of some sort. The river carried voices and laughter from perhaps miles away.  
  
A lonely fishing boat floated on the still waters of the Siem Reap river.  
  
'How could he not understand a single point in what has happened to me?'  
  
Lara picked up a pillow. It was peach-colored and embroidered - not a very soft pillow. She inspected it carefully.  
  
'Did I tell him? Did I tell him about my father?'  
  
He doesn't care, the EvilLara said.  
  
You didn't tell him, AngelLara reminded.  
  
Hating them both, Lara Croft threw the pillow in the air and sent it to the wall with a fierce kick.  
  
She sat down on the floor.  
  
Friends? Was this what happened always between friends who happened to be of the opposite sex? One falls in love, the other breaks havoc.  
  
She loved Jean. Simply and modestly. Yet she loved also the Iris. Simply and modestly. She was ambitious. And young. She could do anything.  
  
Buried too deep in her thoughts, she had not even noticed the sound of glass breaking as the pillow had smashed a mirror.  
  
There was a knock on the door. "Lara?" Jean's voice asked.  
  
Silence. Lara, though, could hear erosion destroying the room walls, the garden trees growing and apples rotting in her backpack. All that Jean heard was silence. "Lara?"  
  
Lara looked at the mirror pieces on the floor.  
  
"Sleeping!" she yelled as hard as she could. Her own voice startled her. Her throat hurt and she sounded a bit hazy, but she was screaming.  
  
Lara swore that she had such special ears she could hear Jean shrugging to himself.  
  
Footsteps. Silence.  
  
Lara got up from the floor.  
  
'Come on, woman, you've made decisions like this before.'  
  
'Yes, all the wrong ones,' ScepticLara answered.  
  
With too much on her mind, Lara Croft fell asleep on her hotel bed.  
  
One could say it was the monkeys. One could say it was fate. But none the richer, Lara woke up three hours later.  
  
Shivering and sweaty, she ran to the bathroom, and drank from the faucet, ignoring all the guidebooks' warnings. She was certainly sick already, so what was the point of trying to avoid whatever lurked in the water?  
  
She stumbled on her bag when returning to her bedroom. Feeling too tired to even move, she collapsed on the bed for some more minutes. Blaming stress and lack of sleep for her unclear, tired mind, she opened her eyes and swallowed some aspirins from the bedside table drawer. Bracing herself, she jumped out, as if testing her leg muscles for function.  
  
'Good enough,' she assured herself, aware that she had fever.  
  
Again.  
  
'Hasn't stopped me before.' She thought, and looked out of the window. It was still pitch dark; the celebration was on full ahead in somewhere around the river.  
  
Lara slipped out of her dress, and attacked her bag for a fresh pair of shorts. Rolling up the legs, she was feeling a little bit more humane.  
  
One ultimate goal. One assignment. One true thing to do.  
  
The shorts were followed by a light blue lycra top.  
  
The same feeling as always. She lived for this. She was meant to do this. She was born to do this.  
  
PathForger hiking boots, laced tightly on her tanned legs.  
  
"The Angkorean Iris was given to the people of Funan by the God Harihara, it was said to give them peace, unbelievable prosperity and victory for a thousand years if it remained in Funan."  
  
Lara quick-braided her hair, reciting the guidebook text like a poem. From a locked closet she pulled out her crossbow, her trusted pistol, and her 12 gauge shotgun.  
  
How could she ever have doubted herself?  
  
She clipped on her pistol holsters, coughing hard. Sweat had already formed steady circles on her top armpits. She felt like hell.  
  
Coughing again and wiping her head with her palm, she ignored some droplets of blood that she had obviously coughed up.  
  
The world wanted its Tomb Raider. And its Tomb Raider it was going to get.  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	6. Chapter 6

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part III: Garden of The Five Towers by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 6  
  
A few moments later, Lara found herself running across the Siem Reap fountain area in the calm silence of the jungle. The atmosphere was intense at nights in tropical countries. As daylight birds stopped singing and went to bed, numerous other creatures revealed themselves and started threading their paths.  
  
Lara continued her run, but was forced to stop after a few minutes. Someone was walking down the road. The only road to Angkor Wat. They had to be some kind of guards.  
  
Approximately three men, probably armed. And probably khmers. Weighing her options, Lara spotted a climbable tree nearby. She grabbed a branch after she had trapped the crossbow safely to her back, left all her other gear in a bush, and started climbing. Hauling herself up, from branch to branch, she followed the men silently. When she got high enough, she unstrapped her crossbow and loaded three arrows in.  
  
Extra arrows or missed shots were not her cup of tea. Aiming carefully between the branches, she fired. One man fell - and the others stopped at their heels, clueless of their new enemy's location.  
  
Another arrow whistled. Another man fell.  
  
Third arrow.  
  
Route secure.  
  
Covering her torch with her free hand, Lara sneaked around the last corner behind the statue. No-one. The temple of Angkor Wat was allegedly empty. She tip-toed to the statue and entered the hidden doorway. With no difficulty she rediscovered the stone door. Without hesitating, she stuck the golden skulls on the wholes of the door.  
  
A faint shudder in the floor. Then the massive door opened. Remembering the oh-so many timed doors she had come across on her travels, Lara quickly went through the door.  
  
And stopped.  
  
Garden of the five towers - just like it had been when she had last visited Cambodia, at the age of sixteen.  
  
Over twenty singhas, guardian lions stood quietly, with fires burning in their mouths. A somehow ghostly, but inviting place at night. Inviting - for an archaeologist.  
  
'What archaeologist? No ordinary one. For an explorer,' Lara corrected herself, and walked up the stairs, slightly amused as she remembered the explanation for the lions' unlikeness to their living models. The poor Cambodians had never seen a lion, just heard stories of this magnificent beast, and their artists had laid guesses on what it might look like.  
  
Just like she had guessed - the other door was now open upstairs. Coughing, she walked up the low steps and stood in the doorway for a second.  
  
Closed was the virtuous route.  
  
Open was the path of the heretical.  
  
So heretical it would be. Lara entered the door, knowing time was of the essence. Darkness was going to hide her of anything lurking in the shadows.  
  
Inexplicably, torches had been lit in the inner chambers, too. Some kind of a mechanism?  
  
Eight miles down the road, in Siem Reap, Jean lit his ceiling lamp and sneaked to the corridor.  
  
He knocked on Lara's door. No answer.  
  
He knocked again. No answer. He had seen from his room that Lara's window was open and the curtains were flying freely in the night wind.  
  
Jean tried the door handle. Unlocked.  
  
He stepped in. The closet where Lara kept her weapons was empty. Her boots had disappeared from the rack.  
  
She had left for the temple. Inspecting Lara's bed, Jean noticed two blood drops on her pillow. Somehow knowing that everything did not fit the picture, Jean ran to his room. Turning over his bag, he found a pair of hiking boots. Tying the laces, he made a silent promise not to let anything happen to Lara.  
  
After a similar rope swing to the one Lara had cleared as a teenager, she opened a familiar door to a dark downwards-curving hallway. She jumped in - and ended up coming out of a statue's massive head.  
  
'So there indeed was another way in,' she thought as she approached the doorway on the other side of the open yard.  
  
Saying a quick goodbye to the starry sky, she entered the Path of the Heretical.  
  
The first chamber was a series of jumping tricks - the sharp spikes on the deep pits would have made anyone's skin crawl when leaping over the pits, but Lara concentrated enough not to make any mistakes. Her timing was perfect, but her reflexes almost betrayed her a couple of times. Every jump felt like the last one she would make.  
  
After a series of different chambers, three furious porcupines, climbable walls, and an underground river, Lara stopped under a tree growing in a chamber. Trying to calm her flaming lungs, she assured herself the goal was nearly at hand. It had to be. It just had to.  
  
Because she was starting to acknowledge the fact that if this kept going for a long time, the fever was going to stop her from getting out of the temple. She was too tired.  
  
Avoiding the word 'weak', in her mind, Lara slowly got up, bit her teeth together, and continued running through the next chambers.  
  
Hoping her pounding heart and feverish brain would agree to co-operate for one more time, Lara stopped on her heels when she saw a pit in the floor in front of her. It was huge.  
  
The spikes way down were bloody, and Lara could spot bones between them. Bracing herself once again - almost not even capable of thinking clearly, she unstarpped her crossbow, attached a rope to an arrow, and shot it over. It hit a vine on the other side.  
  
Not a very good place, but with some luck she could probably.  
  
'I make my own luck.'  
  
She secured the rope to a rock and started shimmying.  
  
A lonely flashlight casted shadows on the corridor walls. Jean-Yves ran deeper to the temple cellar, and found the door with the golden skulls open.  
  
Finally - the fallen pillars of the central chamber. Lara stepped out of the shadows hiding the ancient wall engravings, and wiped off what almost felt like liters of sweat from her forehead. She rested her hand on her face for a moment, feeling the skin burning with an exhausting warmth. She coughed dryly, walked nearer the pillars, almost literally feeling her body burning with excitement, boosted up with fever. She remembered vaguely how she had ran and almost got crushed by the largest one of the huge stone pillars supporting the temple.  
  
She crawled under the same pillar to the chamber. A sudden chill surprised her, she shook her head as if to sheak off the headache she has been nursing for the past five days, and scanned her surroundings.  
  
She felt tired. Almost reluctant to proceed further.  
  
Lara walked past some fallen stones to a familiar wooden lever, still in unbelievably good shape. She pulled it and the exertion knocked her off her feet along with the fever. But she received what she had been looking for: a flower-shaped sanctuary rose from the depths of the chamber floor, and a walkway appeared, as if guiding whoever decides to enter the chamber to the altar itself.  
  
Lara rose to her full height and left the lever, bracing herself - assuring herself that in less than on hour, she would be lying in a soft bed, her prize in a secure place. She was sweating liters of salty water, too hesitant to drink.  
  
'Fatigue can not be fatal. Not now.'  
  
She walked across the chamber and stepped carefully on the walkway, testing its endurance. Satisfied with the results, she walked to the sanctum itself. Coughing hard and ignoring the visible blood droplets on her hand used to wipe her mouth, she took three shaky steps to her destination.  
  
On a low jade pillar stood the Angkorean Iris.  
  
Jean-Yves' route was cut off. There was no chance that he would have been able to clear out such pitfalls, dive into such underwater rivers, or escape porcupines. After the Garden of The Five Towers had changed into the Path of the Heretical, he had to admit Lara had won. Cursing silently, he took this last glance to a deep spike pit separating him from the resting place of the Iris, he turned back and started retracing his steps.  
  
All he could now do was to wait on the temple yard. He had tried his best. Or had he? Was there something he could do?  
  
Just like five years before, as Lara raised the artifact from its pillar, the sanctuary started pulling back down, and an earthquake shattered the sanctuary. The walkway collapsed.  
  
The sanctum of the Iris was pulling down - threatening to take Lara with it. And there was nothing she could do.  
  
Out, on the dawn of the temple yard, Jean-Yves felt the tremors of the temple pillars. Digging his fingernails in his palm, enraged, he swore that if she got out alive, he would keep her alive until getting home. At whatever cost.  
  
Jean-Yves believed in telepathy - or at least he started believing in it as he realized he somehow knew this was all his fault, in a way.  
  
Maybe.  
  
Perhaps.  
  
Or maybe not. One way or the other, the truth was worthless if it costed Lara's life.  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	7. Chapter 7

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part III: Garden of The Five Towers by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 7  
  
Certain that her journey had come to an end, Lara prepared to be crushed between the sanctuary's stone pillars.  
  
The earthquake stopped. Nothing happened.  
  
Lara stood up, sweat and tears running down her face. Closing her eyes and raising her face upwards, she wasn't sure what god she was thanking.  
  
This all finally had a meaning.  
  
This was what she was meant to do. An insane woman's laugh escaped her lips as she remembered what Buddha had once said.  
  
"What has been built will collapse; And what is up, must come down."  
  
Her laugh echoing in the empty chamber, she opened her eyes.  
  
Along with the location of the Angkorean Iris, another great mystery in the history of archaeology was solved, as Lara's eyes adjusted to the darkness.  
  
A part of the closed sanctum was open, and at the end of a dark hallway shone a dim light.  
  
Daylight.  
  
'So that's how good old Werner von Croy escaped.'  
  
Coughing in relief and using the last drops of strength in her body, she walked to the hallway, lighting a torch. Before the doorway was an inscription.  
  
"Nge jung. Mun ay dtay. Moo-ay dtoh dtrong."  
  
'Give up on fear. It does not hold importance. Alone, go straight ahead.'  
  
Making a mental note to remember the phrase, Lara walked out of the temple, shaking and leaning on the wall.  
  
After the first rays of early sunlight caught her eyes and her boots crushed the last bits of grass, she lost consciousness and collapsed on the ground, cluthing the Holy Iris in her arms. Jean-Yves did not have to wait long. After the earth had shattered as something had collapsed within the temple, Jean noticed a dim light appearing behind a pillar. In a few second someone appeared on the yard. Someone with a long plait of sweaty hair, cluthing a strange artifact. The figure arrived on the yard - and collapsed on the ground.  
  
No question. Lara.  
  
Jean ran to her.  
  
"Lara?"  
  
"Lara, in God's name, answer me!"  
  
Jean turned her around and took away the Iris from her arms, still an archaeologist soul enough to place it carefully on the ground.  
  
She was burning with fever. Her face was bloodshot red, her clothes wet from the perspiration.  
  
"Mon dieu, woman, answer me!"  
  
Realizing the situation, Jean grabbed Lara, the Iris, and started a desperate run to Siem Reap, eight miles north of the temple of Angkor Wat.  
  
Jean-Yves felt as he had been running for a year as he arrived on the hotel yard with his valuable burden. As seconds passed he grew more and more worried of Lara. Her thin frame felt like a ragdoll, and she had not opened her eyes a single time.  
  
Still burning with fever probably forty degrees celsius he knew she had to be cooled down quickly.  
  
The hotel yard was empty. Just the decorative, but post-war destroyed fountain gushed water silently. Making the craziest snap decision of his life Jean-Yves dropped Lara to the fountain, hoping the shock caused by the cold water would wake her up from her fever-arised unconsciousness. Jean took a quick glance at Lara, grabbed the Iris, and ran in to the hotel reception.  
  
"I need a doctor!"  
  
The receptionist, an elderly Cambodian woman, did not seem to understand what he meant.  
  
"Do you speak English?" Jean-Yves more yelled than asked, "Parlez-vous Francais?"  
  
The receptionist spread her hands. She did not understand a word he was saying. Digging out the few words of Cambodian he had learned from Lara's guidebook, he knew he had to try.  
  
"Bpairt? Moon-dti bpairt?"  
  
"D'tay," the woman apologized. No doctors. No hospitals.  
  
"Can I use the phone?" Jean asked, quickly imitating a phone received with his right hand. The woman seemed to understand. She dug up a phone from under the counter and left Jean-Yves alone in the reception. Praying that the lines were functional, Jean looked out of the door. A small crowd had closed in on the fountain. They seemed amused at the sight of a shorts- wearing archaeologist sleeping in a fountain. Jean, however, was not amused - he was scared to the last cell in his body.  
  
"You take good care of Lara, Jean." He remembered his mother's words crystal clear. He knew Lara would never have let him take the order literally, but this was an exception.  
  
The phone lines worked. Dialing a long number he hoped he remembered correctly, he stood nervously and waited for the signal to start. "Residencé DuCarmine. Oui?"  
  
"Get my father on the phone, Alain. Quick."  
  
"Certainement, Monsieur Jean-Yves."  
  
After a short while that felt like forever to Jean, he heard his father's voice on the phone.  
  
"Jean? Please do speak English, your mother is listening on the speakers. How are you doing?"  
  
"I don't have time for this. I have to get her to Bangkok."  
  
"Slow down, Jean. Get who where?"  
  
"I have to get Lara Croft to Bangkok. There are literally no hospitals in this country, I read the book, it says."  
  
"If the matter is medical, you are right. Is she hurt?"  
  
"No, she's been sick ever since we got here."  
  
"Where are you now, Jean?" Monsieur DuCarmine sounded worried.  
  
"I'm in Grand Hotel d'Angkor, Siem Reap," Jean sighed, twisting his thumb as he took continuous glances to the yard.  
  
"Jean- Call me back in a few minutes. I shall see what I can do. Where is Lara Croft right now?"  
  
"She's in the fountain, Papa."  
  
Sudden silence.  
  
"The fountain? Jean, I trust you to keep things up in there. I will try to arrange something."  
  
The phone line closed. Jean ran to the yard and pulled Lara from the fountain. With her clothes dry she had weighed literally nothing, but with completely wet clothes she weighed like a stone. Arm muscles cramping, Jean carried her to his bed, reasoning the wet clothes to keep her cool, and ran back to the reception.  
  
He picked up the phone and redialled the number.  
  
"Jean?" his father answered.  
  
"Oui? Did you succeed?" Jean asked without hesitation.  
  
"I reached an old army colleague in Bangkok. He has arranged a helicopter flight to Siem Reap in two hours. They can only carry one. I assume you can get to Bangkok some other way if they take her today?"  
  
"Certainement, Papa. Merci," Jean yelled to the phone and left the reception to check on Lara. She was still sleeping, or otherwise, Jean wasn't sure what she'd call her feverish slumber. She didn't feel so hot anymore. At least, she did not feel burning. Jean sat next to her on the bed.  
  
"You did it, Lara. The Iris is yours," he whispered, uncertain if he could even imagine such determination or perseverance. Th only thing he was certain of was that there was no-one he admired more than Lara Croft.  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	8. Chapter 8

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part III: Garden of The Five Towers by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================  
  
Chapter 8  
  
~Five days later~  
  
Central Hospital of Bangkok  
  
Suapa Avenua 1093 Chinatown, Bangkok  
  
Clutching a huge bouquet of orchids in his hand, Jean-Yves rode the elevator up.  
  
Bangkok was a fresh wind of civilization after Cambodia. In all honesty, he had been happier than ever as his plane had crossed the Thailand border for good. After packing both his and Lara's things, he had arranged himself a seat in a rare commercial flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok. The flooded streets of the capital had felt sad, and Jean had lost all interest in the civil war in the God-forsaken kingdom of Cambodia. They had the Iris, and that was the main thing.  
  
Finding Lara help in Bangkok had not been easy. With some help of his father, they had phoned through all the hospitals and private clinics in the city, and the last one had been the right one.  
  
Murphy's law.  
  
The elevator doors opened to the eleventh floor of the state-of-the-art facility known as the Central Hospital of Bangkok.  
  
Behind the reception desk stood a young Thai girl in a regular nurse's outfit. Jean walked up to the desk.  
  
"Miss Lara Croft, please?"  
  
The receptionist smiled. "Just around the corner, Sir. Room 1120."  
  
Jean flashed a relieved smile to the young woman, and walked to the room door.  
  
It was evening, the sun was setting and creating curtain-shaped patches of light on the sterile, white floors.  
  
He opened the door.  
  
It was a private room, with tropical flowers in numerous pots near the big window opening towards the Mangkhon Road temple.  
  
Lara sat in the hospital bed, following his movements slowly.  
  
"I'm sorry," Jean said silently.  
  
"Sorry for what?" Lara asked politely, unsure what she was supposed to say.  
  
"For something. I don't know. I was hoping you'd tell me." He gave Lara the flowers, and as predicted, she smelled them and put them aside. "Don't be sorry for anything, Jean." Lara almost smiled. Almost.  
  
"You seem well." Jean stated simply. "Malaria. I should've guessed."  
  
"I'm already down to 37.9 degrees. You know what they say, one's gotta get it sooner or later." Lara small talked.  
  
"They say that about the influenza, not malaria."  
  
Lara looked out of the window.  
  
To fill the silence following his own comment seconds before, Jean opened his mouth.  
  
"You never answered my question." He said, sitting down in the chair next to the bed.  
  
"You figured a sick woman would say yes more easily?"  
  
"I'm not plotting against you, Lara Croft, by asking you a question, personal or not."  
  
Lara sat up, and looked deep into Jean's eyes. "Was this planned? Both of us from good families, rich as hell, my father would be downright ecstatic to have a son-in-law like you."  
  
"Nothing was planned," Jean assured her.  
  
"Why don't you answer a question."  
  
Jean nodded.  
  
"What such good deeds have you done that make you think it is your right to walk in here and reask for my hand?"  
  
"I dropped you in a fountain," Jean said.  
  
Lara ignored his remark, sure that he was joking.  
  
"Jean, I'd be honored to be your friend. I'd be miserable to be your wife. Even the thought sounds ridiculous."  
  
Jean, who had never met anyone so straightforward, just sat and listened.  
  
Lara stopped talking and looked out of the window.  
  
"I'm sorry. I am. I know what you did in Angkor Wat."  
  
Jean just nodded.  
  
"I escaped marriage to Oxford. I escaped marriage to America."  
  
Jean turned his head and Lara stopped.  
  
"Saying no does not kill me of a broken heart."  
  
"The matter's settled then." Lara said quietly.  
  
"One thing," Jean said.  
  
Lara listened.  
  
"You did not kill me of a broken heart. You only almost scared me to death." Not wanting to say anything more, Jean got up, gave Lara a light kiss on her cheek, and disappeared to the hallway, leaving Lara alone.  
  
Lara rubbed her temples. She felt like the world had quickened its run and she had beend dropped out of the winning team. She had lost a friend, an artifact, and almost her life, or at least that was what she had been told by the doctors.  
  
She wondered what had happened after the temple. She did not remember.  
  
Lara heard distant sounds from the Chinatown eleven floors down. Fireworks rattles as the citizens of Thailand were celebrating some festival she knew nothing about.  
  
Beans on toast was all she wanted.  
  
Plain beans on plain toast.  
  
And company.  
  
She was alone as ever. Perhaps it was for the best, perhaps not.  
  
Her flow of thoughts was interrupted as a nurse stepped into the room. She was carrying something. A chinese lantern with something faintly glowing inside.  
  
The nurse flashed her a compassionate smile, and passed the lantern to Lara.  
  
"The young Sir who visited you earlier left this at the reception." She said, nodded at Lara, and left the room.  
  
Lara inspected the lantern. It was made of red paper, with green dragons. Having a sudden revelation, Lara ripped open the lantern. Inside, was something she definitely did not expect.  
  
The Angkorean Iris.  
  
'Did I get it?'  
  
'Did Jean get it?'  
  
There was also a note inside the lantern. In the words of Buddha.  
  
" 'What ever happiness there is in the world It is because you wished luck for the others; What ever suffering exists there is in this world, It is for you wished luck for yourself.'  
  
I think this belongs to you.  
  
Call at least once in a decade,  
  
Jean".  
  
Lara smiled.  
  
Bangkok International Airport Nang Sbaek, Bangkok Thailand  
  
"Last call to flight 502AF to Paris."  
  
Jean grabbed his bags and hurried to the gate. He had done his check-in, and then sat down on one of the benches. He had been buried deep in his own thoughts - the last call was the first he heard.  
  
As he passed the gate secretary, she pulled his sleeve.  
  
"Monsieur DuCarmine? Urgent call for you," she said.  
  
Jean did not take the receiver from her. He saw the last passengers hurrying to the plane. He had to answer the phone or catch his flight. It was too late to do both.  
  
The secretary spoke again; "It is a Miss Lara Croft. She says she must speak to you," she informed Jean.  
  
After taking a look at the steward making nervous, hurrying gestures to him to board the plane before it was too late, Jean turned back to the secretary.  
  
"Tell her she found it. That it something she'll want to hear more than anything," Jean said, leaving the secretary puzzled.  
  
Jean made his decision. He flashed the gate secreterary a wide smile, and boarded his plane.  
  
Watching Bangkok get smaller and smaller in the plane window, Jean smiled again - this time only to himself. He knew Lara Croft was going to call her a little more often than once in a decade.  
  
End of part III/V  
  
~For additional information about the series and the creative process, there's an article published about the series at "Lara Croft's Tales Of Beauty And Power". You can find it in the section "Author's Notes". I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far.  
  
Heidi  
  
All feedback to: siirma6@surfeu.fi 


End file.
